A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Protests and Deaths Rock Libya and Bahrain

Libya's Mumar Khadafi and the Bahraini regimes are both using deadly force to quell the protests that have sprung up in the wake of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

There were reports of 16 deaths, but they could not be independently confirmed.

A text message sent out earlier on mobile phones had threatened Libyans planning to take to the streets, activists and bloggers said.

"From Libya's youth to anyone who dares to cross any of the four red lines come and face us in any street on the ground of our beloved country," the Short Message System dispatch said, referring to a speech by Saif el-Islam Gadhafi, Moammar Gadhafi's son, in which he described the lines as Islamic law, the Quran, Libyan security and his father.

They apparently did little to deter demonstrators. Protests in the isolated North African nation broke out this week, part of a larger anti-government movement sweeping the region.

Libya's regime has limited foreign journalists access to the country, which limits its coverage other than from reports and tweets from those inside the country trying to spread the word about the protests.

A US reporter for ABC News was beaten by thugs armed with clubs early Thursday while covering the unrest in Bahrain, the US network reported.

Correspondent Miguel Marquez was caught in the crowd and attacked while covering protests in Manama, ABC said.

Marquez, who said he was not badly injured, was clubbed while he was on the phone with his headquarters in New York describing the scene as riot police stormed through a Manama square in the dark in a harsh crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

The military moved forcefully to clear the main square where protests hoped to converge following the scene of protests in Tahrir Square. The military now occupies the square, leaving the protesters to find alternative locations and regroup for further demonstrations.

With the death toll rising, the demonstrations and protests are likely to be connected with the funerals of those killed by security forces. That's likely to be a rallying point against the Bahraini regime that has moved too slowly on political and economic reforms.

The pro-democracy movement has bubbled for decades in Bahrain, but it found new strength after the overthrow of the dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt. Then the Bahrain government attacked the protesters early this week with stunning brutality, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and shotgun pellets at small groups of peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. Two demonstrators were killed (one while walking in a funeral procession), and widespread public outrage gave a huge boost to the democracy movement.

King Hamad initially pulled the police back, but early on Thursday morning he sent in the riot police, who went in with guns blazing. Bahrain television has claimed that the protesters were armed with swords and threatening security – that’s preposterous. I was on the roundabout earlier that night and saw many thousands of people, including large numbers of women and children, even babies. Many were asleep.

I was not at the roundabout at the time of the attack, but afterward at the main hospital (one of at least three to receive casualties) I saw the effects. More than 600 people were treated with injuries, overwhelmingly men but including small numbers of women and children.

One nurse told me that she was on the roundabout and saw a young man of about 24, handcuffed and then beaten by a group of police. She said she then watched as they executed him at point-blank range with a gun. The nurse told me her name, but I will not use full names of some people in this column to avoid putting them at greater risk.

Dr. Ahmed Jamal, the president of the Bahrain Medical Society, said that one doctor, Sadiq Ekri, a surgeon, had been badly beaten by riot police while attempting to treat the injured. Dr. Ekri has a suspected fracture at the base of his skull, according to Dr. Jamal.

Kristof also reports anecdotes that the Saudi military was involved in the military suppression of the protests and the bloody and violent nature of the suppression.

Bringing in foreign troops would also explain why things got so violent so quickly. The Saudis would have no connection to the protesters (as the Egyptian troops felt kinship with the protesters), and so wouldn't be aligned in interests. If this is confirmed, the Bahraini king brought in foreign troops to do his dirty work to stay in power.